Donald Trump got the whole media God Bothering-thing started with his now deleted post of him dressed in white Jesus-robes attending to the sick while angels and the US military float above him. He then said it’s just him as a doctor accidentally dressed in robes, with a glowing halo and adoring looks all around. He wasn’t Jesus, he was Jesus-adjacent.
Trump’s explanation may be hard to believe but media reaction since is more wrapped-up in spiritual intrigue than the original post with non-believer journalists who haven’t seen the inside of a church in years suddenly doing-God, pointing out the theoretical blasphemy like they care.
Adding to the media god-bothering, are the Pope’s statements criticising the war in Iran and Trump’s behaviour. This has journos who dismiss religion as an anachronism irrelevant to modern society, digging into their abridged editions of Catholic Just War policy for more anti-Donald evidence.
Most importantly, some journalists are now calling up scripture experts not seen since the last priest went on trial to find out if this will affect Trump’s Catholic vote.
Media in the US and Australia may ask, but this is a misunderstanding of the how the diversity of Catholic thinking works.
While many (often ex-Catholic) journalists suggest that Catholics are conservative and vote as a block in fact – and in my experience – the majority vote Left and despise Trump and have no time for the MAGA gospel. In Australia, Catholic liberal thinking informs all sorts of centre-left social justice concerns like refugee issues, homelessness and poverty. Hardly the stuff of billionaire property developer presidents.
Turns out that despite their atheist denials, most Australian journalists do have a Jesus-thing for God-like figures. Read any Gough Whitlam biography and you will know that saying Gough is a higher omnipotent force isn’t just a joke Gough used to tell the media to make them laugh. Like any seasoned performer, he knew his audience. Similarly, past documentaries on Julia Gillard and her misogyny speech take religious devotion to a whole new heavenly level. In some circles, it seems to question her greatness as a Prime Minister is the ultimate gendered blasphemy and you really should expect the Spanish Inquisition.
Labor Deity Paul Keating’s recent intervention on Angus Taylor’s immigration and values speech is being treated like it’s the Ten Commandments by media who transition from cynics to credulous believers at the Church of Keating without any consideration that perhaps with the current state of the economy and One Nation on the rise maybe this is exactly the right time to discuss immigration regardless of your personal political articles of faith.
Like turning water into wine journalists who were the ultimate religious sceptics are transfigured into unquestioningly Book of Paul followers, even if he’s so last century. It’s sort of a political and media miracle.
